Interview with Oswaldo Natarén of the University Front of Roque Dalton, National University of El Salvador

Oswaldo
Natarén is an artist, activist, and co-founder of the University Front
of Roque Dalton (FURD), a leftist student group at the National
University of El Salvador (UES). Formed in 2002, FURD's purpose is to
actively challenge the University's approach to administration,
organization, admissions, and curriculum, as well as its overall role
and participation in society.

The UES is El Salvador's only
public University and the school admits 45,000 students each year. Part
of the FURD's work is to help gain admissions for students who've been
rejected by the University for various reasons, typically concerning
lack of money and low test scores. The group also organizes with
current students, campus workers, and professors to unify under the
common goal of University reform. They envision "a University that
reflects, critiques, and transforms society."

A more in-depth
interview with current members of the FURD is forthcoming. The purpose
of this interview with Natarén, recent graduate and veteran youth
organizer, is to give U.S. activists a brief introduction to the FURD's
analysis in a long history of oppression and resistance at the UES, a
closer look at El Salvador's coyuntura (situation, or combined
political and social forces in play), and an understanding of organized
leftist youth expectations of the FMLN.

UDW: Tell us a little bit about the founding of the FURD and why you chose Roque Dalton as a historic figure to identify with?

ON:
The FURD was envisioned as a new chapter in the ongoing response of
students in the National University to organize ourselves and to
uncover the UES' historic role in El Salvador's revolutionary movement.
The political project of the FURD arose in 2002 out of a collective
need to continue that struggle. The group continues to explore and
affect the life of the University through these objectives: to examine
the other side of the history that is taught to us; to discover that
there are many of us who think differently than the way society has
trained us (as this is the case, we often think differently than one
another); and to articulate both what the University's role in society
is at the moment and what it could be.

The group's name is
inspired by the revolutionary Salvadoran poet, Roque Dalton Garcia.
Roque was an untiring social fighter, poet, and important political
architect of the revolutionary movement in El Salvador. He completed
his University training at the UES and then went on to create a great
literary legacy in his time of struggle throughout the 1960s and 1970s,
until his assassination at age 39. It was necessary to recover the name
of this poet and his struggle because of the political and personal
essence of his work.

Dalton Stencil: Oswaldo Natarén

The FURD was created with a clear leftist
ideological intention - we wanted to be identified as part of the
anti-imperialist struggle, in connection with academic political
struggle. Our project changed measurably when we began to delve into
the study of diverse theories that have guided different people's
struggles for human rights, but we have maintained our leftist essence.
Our idea is to form a political student FRONT that incorporates
University youth from various disciplines as well as University workers
and faculty into the struggle. To me, the word UNIVERSITY implies our
potential to come together in this institution and continue the
historical legacy of the glorious Salvadoran student movement.

UDW:
Describe El Salvador's coyuntura leading into elections earlier this
year. What are the social realities and political frustrations in the
country that, for the present time, have translated into major
political gains for the leftist FMLN party?

ON: Well,
throughout the 20 years that ARENA (National Republican Alliance) has ruled the country, Salvadorans
have faced a very difficult situation. Poverty has increased under the
ARENA government and policies of social
exclusion have been maintained. When the government began implementing
neoliberal policies in the mid-90s - including the privatization of
banks, electricity, pensions and other institutions of social benefit -
El Salvador entered a new period of economic crisis. Many compatriots
have been forced to leave the country in search of a basic means of
survival.

Dollarization and free trade - new instruments of the
neoliberal agenda - have created fallout and have enhanced the crisis.
Unemployment is a determining factor. We have a very large rate of
unemployment this year, exceeding the rates of previous years. This is
to say that every year, the ARENA government has increased unemployment
in this country and, by extension, increased violence.

Violence
in El Salvador has risen as a result of the disintegration of families
and local economies. The government has not had a logical response.
When violent crime increases, it is the role of the government to
create plans to address root causes, not new ways to fight crime. The
increased levels and the types of crimes being committed are the
results of previously failed plans.

The Super Mano Dura (Iron
Fist) plan has only increased violence and could not have had any other
outcome. As a result of Mano Dura, more people have become gang members
and the prison population has exploded. Criminal actions have become
more complex, so that now we see a big rise in organized crime, which
is one of the determining factors of how the ARENA party has governed.

This
gives us a more complex picture of the conditions the four hundred
thousand families in our country have to face. The informal sector is
the largest source of work, which cannot be considered a generator of
employment but rather a last resort for the unemployed.

During
elections, political parties offer alternative solutions to social
problems and this year the Left in the country, the FMLN, presented to
the people a better plan. People like us-who are social activists and
have been emerging throughout the many years of social struggle-have
generated good expectations among the population as we have moved
through and beyond the hard years of war by continuing to organize.

UDW:
Given the history of State violence and economic sabotage in El
Salvador, the political entrenchment of the right wing, and pressure
from industrialized nations, what can the FMLN reasonably accomplish
over the next five years that would be a marked shift away from the
status quo and towards greater autonomy?

ON: The new government
should be focused on throwing out the old schemes implemented by ARENA.
ARENA has created a neoliberal system - a system that gives priority to
individualism. The market gives priority to profit before anything

Illustration Courtesy of Equipo Maiz

else
and the FMLN must change that. I was a child when the war was over, so
I have lived through 20 years of neoliberalism. Now that the FMLN has
won, they must focus on reversing the social abandonment policies of
previous governments. They will have to wrestle with various
perspectives to determine how that can be done.

With the
creation of laws that undermine our power and by signing commercial
treaties like CAFTA and big contracts for private megaprojects
(U.S.-funded dams, mining projects, and the construction of a
transnational highway - plans established through the Bush
Administration's Millennium Challenge Corporation goals), ARENA has
violated El Salvador's sovereignty. They have told us, rather than
asked, what we want to develop in this country. So the new government
must prioritize the social factor. It should be close to the people and
respond to our interests.

At this point, the FMLN has said it
will not consider breaking away from CAFTA or the U.S. dollar. I
understand that this is an immediate strategy for the FMLN to accept
real constraints of the existing power structure - but we hope that
future FMLN governments will continue to investigate the loss of
benefits we've experienced as a result of free trade and privatization,
and soon determine another course.

UDW: What are some of the specific steps you think the FMLN government should take in the next five years?

ON:
As a social activist who's part of the leftist struggle, I don't just
want the FMLN government to lead for the next five years; I want it to
govern for many more. But that possibility is not going to depend as
much, at first, on the population as it will on the actions of the
party. The party has to focus on educating people so that the people
have the power. Mauricio Funes should know that only five years of an
FMLN government would be a failure. The FMLN needs to lead for many
more years in order to effectively transform El Salvador.

There are three fundamental aspects that should be a priority for the new government:

We
need to return to and revive the agricultural sector - agriculture
being an essential element that can bring about the development of
rural families and can also change the troubled course this country is
on. ARENA completely abandoned this sector, even while poverty
increased. Because of this neglect, the country isn't self-sufficient.
We consume but do not produce. Through the agricultural sector, the
FMLN government could guarantee food to the whole population while
generating more jobs - and better jobs -so that people will no longer
be forced to migrate.

The FMLN government must then move the
foundations of education and create a structure for strengthening the
population as a whole. Our country can be transformed through
education. People must be educated - and be educated here, in El
Salvador. If it is shown that the FMLN government is giving priority to
social issues and is working for the people, the people will continue
to support the FMLN.

Oswaldo Natarén

Third, the FMLN should strengthen the
political system and teach people how the government works so that they
know what the government is doing and why. People have to be informed
of their rights - then they can understand and inform the system. You
can see the example of this in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has
given priority to social issues. Because it has worked in the interest
of the people, the people have supported the government.

By
coming into consciousness, people can move the entire government system
to benefit the whole population. We can create health brigades,
literacy programs and crime prevention programs. We have to focus not
only on writing these ideas down and knowing how to analyze the issues
at hand but on actually reaching out to more people and moving
awareness into collective action. This is the same population that, in
later years, will be a strong social and political force.

We
believe the need for change is great and that it will take some time
for the FMLN to turn things around. But we also have immediate demands.
We want to know that we will have protection and support when things go
wrong. We want real social benefits, which to us are more than just
political strategies. These basic expectations have been neglected by
all of the previous governments. Now that the FMLN has an opportunity
to lead, it must ensure our welfare; we believe that this will require,
in addition to the things I've already mentioned, El Salvador's
integration with other countries in Latin America that are also on a
path of social change: Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador and
Paraguay.

This is Part Three of a series of interviews with members of El Salvador's social movements titled "What We Want: Voices from the
Salvadoran Left."

Erica
Thompson is a media correspondent for CISPES
(Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). To find out
what you can do in the U.S. to support the people's movement and to
take action against U.S. intervention in El Salvador, visit: www.CISPES.org or call (202)521-2510.

"If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn't we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?" -Eduardo Galeano